|
WASHINGTON D.C. (January 27, 2008) - Plans to withdraw four Army
brigade combat teams and two Marine battalions by July are "on
track" as the military seeks to draw down the number of troops in
Iraq as quickly as ground conditions allow, the top U.S. commander
in Iraq said today.
Appearing today on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer," Army
Gen. David H. Petraeus said the scheduled withdrawal will reduce
the number of troops at the height of the surge by one quarter, or
roughly 42,500. Further reductions after July will be based on the
state of Iraq's security, he added.
"The guidance that (Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates) in fact
has given me -- and the president and my chain of command, what all
of them have said -- is that reductions after July should be
conditions-based," he said.
The general said after the upcoming drawdown, Defense Department
and military officials will need time to "let things settle a bit"
before making further reduction assessments. Their focus, he said,
will be on removing forces expeditiously, but without undercutting
progress made during the troop surge that launched this time last
year.
Petraeus, commander of Multinational Force Iraq, said drawdowns
aim to relieve strains on servicemembers, many of whom have engaged
in multiple and extended deployments to support U.S. operations in
Iraq and Afghanistan. Force level reductions also would save money
and cut back the flow of resources, he said.
The Army strives to provide soldiers the highest possible amount
of "dwell time" -- the period at home stations between deployments
-- and reduce deployments from 15 months to 12, the general
added.
"But we want to do it, again, in a way that will allow these
gains to be maintained. We don't want to jeopardize what we have
fought so hard for," he said. "The key is to make the timing of
that right and to figure out when that will make sense."
Petraeus and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan C. Crocker are
expected in coming months to give Congress a follow-up to the
military and diplomatic progress update they delivered in
September.
Asked today about Iraqi security forces' capability, Petraeus
said the roughly 550,000-strong force is assuming an increasingly
larger role in maintaining the country's security. The overall
forces -- composed of some 343,000 police members, 208,000 defense
ministry soldiers and 4,000 special operations forces -- suffer
nearly three times the number of U.S military casualties, which
Petraeus said indicated the Iraqis' devotion to stability in their
country.
Earlier this month, more than 2 million religious pilgrims
gathered in Iraq to celebrate the Islamic holiday Ashura. In a
ceremony that has been marked in recent years by "terrible
bloodshed," the Jan. 18 holiday occurred with minimal violence, the
general said.
"The Iraqi security forces planned this year the security for
that, ... and in fact, in Najaf, Karbala, and Baghdad the
celebrations went off virtually without incident," he said,
conceding that violence occurred in Basra and Nasiriya. "But Iraqi
security forces responded in each of those cases and dealt with the
situation."
Officials have stated that reductions of U.S. forces in Iraq
depend largely on an Iraqi security force that is capable of
tamping down violence in the country. Petraeus today noted that
half of Iraq's 18 provinces currently are under provincial control,
but pointed out that Iraq's security institutions face challenges
in breeding military leaders and in equipping and maintaining the
current forces.
"(Leadership) is the area that is probably the most difficult,
because you just can't find captains, colonels, and generals out
there in the numbers that they need by just going back to those who
are willing to serve from the old army -- not all of whom, perhaps,
have the qualities that one would want in the leadership of the new
Iraq army anyway," Petraeus said.
"It is easy, relatively speaking, to develop infantry
battalions; it is very difficult to develop the institutional
underpinnings that support those forces, maintain their vehicles,
get them paid on time, feed them, and all of the rest of that," he
added.
Petraeus said Iraqi security forces are handling the challenges.
The handover of responsibility from U.S. to Iraqi forces is
occurring not like a light switch, he said, but more like a
rheostat, referring to the type of electrical resistor that adjusts
to allow the flow of a current to grow in increments.
The Multinational Force Iraq commander said he does not foresee
the U.S. maintaining a permanent military presence in Iraq, but
rather a smaller number of U.S. troops remaining in Iraq "for some
period of years." Citing key pieces of legislation passed by the
Iraqi parliament recently, Petraeus said in the future he envisions
troops performing a mission that places greater emphasis on
empowering Iraq's "reconcilables," those who embrace cooperation
over divisiveness.
"I think our soldiers were prepared intellectually for the
concept that there were reconcilables whom we needed to reach out
to and try to become part of the solution over time, rather than
part of the problem," he said. "And you try to minimize the number
of irreconcilables, because at the end of the day, they have to be
killed, captured, or run out of the country."
|
